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Friday, July 02, 2010

High Five!

Jason and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary this weekend! For some reason, this one really feels like a milestone.

Anyway, during these five years, we've been to a lot of friends' weddings, so I've been collecting ideas and inspirations. And now I kind of want to have another wedding {with the same guy, of course}.

Instead {much to the relief of everyone except me, I'm sure}, I thought I'd just share five things I would change about our wedding and five things that I loved and would definitely do again.

Changes:

Invitees. Our wedding was in the rotunda of Reese Phifer Hall {for those of you Tuscaloosa-familiar folks}, so we were super concerned about the small space and how many guests would fit. We ended up only having about 30 guests, which was nice and intimate, but we left out a lot of people we cared about and, I think, hurt some feelings. Looking back, I wish we had just adopted a the-more-the-merrier attitude and figured out where to put everyone later.

Focus. In a way, your wedding weekend is supposed to be focused on you--especially the bride, right? ;) But I was amazed at my best pal Shelley's wedding at the concern she and Brandon showed for their guests. From thinking of activities we'd all enjoy {boat ride!} to having lovely gift bags in all our rooms, they made the weekend about all of us, and that made it really memorable.

Details. I didn't really do a good job of coordinating colors or doing the creative, decorative bits that can really make a wedding *pop* {is that the right word?}. No surprise there--those are not my strengths! But I should have hired someone to do that!

Time. Jason likes that we got married in the middle of the year {July 2} in the middle of the day {noon}, but I kind of wished we had done an early morning ceremony and brunch reception. Especially since it was about 110 that day.

Dancing. This is another thing I would change that Jason wouldn't. He just was not comfortable with the idea of having a big, traditional dancing reception, but I would have boogied all day and all night if it had just been up to me.

Keepers:

Apparel. As every bride should, I loved what I wore on my wedding day--my dress was handmade and unique, and, I'm not gonna lie, my shoes rocked. Also, we opted for Jason to wear a suit instead of a tux, and that suit has come in handy the other two times he's worn it in five years.

Laidback-ness. Because the wedding was so small and because we are pretty laidback people, we kept everything really casual. This was {mostly} nice. I love that we just had everyone over to our place for pizza instead of doing a formal rehearsal dinner, for instance.

Flowers. We opted for a lot of greenery instead of arrangements and daisies {to go along with the barbecue at the reception}, and my bouquet was a big ol' bunch of hydrangeas, which are my favorite flowers.

Setting. Even though it was crazy hot, I'm glad we got married in July. Fall was out because of football. {Don't judge.} And we didn't want to wait a year to have it in the winter or spring {we had gotten engaged in February}. So, July it was. And getting married in the place we met and had our first kiss and dated and fell in love was just awesome.

Involvement. I'm always amazed at how God puts the right people in our paths at the right times in life, and this was no exception. I was interning at The Capitol School when I was planning the wedding and, through connections there, met the lady who made my dress and the violinists. Our pal Brett at APR {Pro Pruning and Landscape Design in Northport} did all the flowers, Jason's former boss was the videographer, and my cousin-in-law was the photographer. And, of course, we had a tremendous amount of general help from our families and friends we consider family.

So, there you go. Changes and keepers for any of you looking for wedding advice {as if you don't get enough when getting married--ha}. I'd still like to have another wedding {or giant wedding-type party}, but maybe we'll wait another five years on that.

2 comments:

And you're not the only one with a list of things to change about her wedding. I would do a lot of things differently too. But I would never change the guy! :-) Hope y'all paint the town red celebrating tonight.